Connecting Malian and Burkinabe women’s local experiences of livelihood security to how they participate in politics

When women participate in local politics, politics becomes more inclusive and local governments can be more responsive to a wide range of citizen concerns. Extensive research on gender quotas has generated knowledge about how these institutional reforms can advance women’s representation and political participation. However, we know less about the local-level variables that affect women’s incentives to participate in politics. Drawing on interview data with 160 women and men in two village research sites located in a rural cross-border zone in Mali and Burkina Faso, this paper asks how women’s livelihood pursuits affect their political participation. The paper argues that women’s experiences of livelihood security shape how they respond to the opportunities for political participation that exist in their local communities. Women in a village in Mali who experience more livelihood security across the seasons aspire to future political participation as elected members of the local government council. By contrast, women in a neighboring village in Burkina Faso who experience less livelihood security across the seasons focus on attending local government meetings and making claims on the local government to support them as women and as farmers who experience livelihood insecurity. Meeting attendance and claims-making happen through women’s savings and credit associations. Women in both research sites participate in these similarly structured associations, but more political participation happens through associations for the Burkinabe women who experience livelihood insecurity. These findings highlight how objective differences in gendered, local political economies create divergent opportunities for women’s livelihoods, which contribute to differences in how they respond to opportunities for political participation. These dynamics call for further attention to the relationship between livelihood security and political participation and more attention to how women participate in politics through associations. In these rural villages, women are making important contributions to public life through political participation, economic production, and civic engagement.